This weekend a friend who’s getting married in November told me he hasn’t actually seen the venue yet, even though it’s nearby. In fact, outside of the date he knows absolutely nothing about the wedding. His fiancée and her mother are planning the whole thing without him.
My jaw dropped. I was flabbergasted. Flummoxed. Perplexed. How can he go all these months without being involved in his OWN WEDDING, I scoffed to myself? How could he just blatantly NOT CARE?
I managed sputter back, “But… but don’t you feel like you’re missing out on the chance to personalize your wedding? Aren’t you afraid that it isn’t going to reflect you?”
He shrugged. “Nah. All that stuff is just stuff,” he said. He explained that his fiancée’s family is paying, and they’re really committed to the idea of the wedding being a certain way, so he’s OK with letting them make those decisions. In the end, he’s still getting married, and that’s what matters. Right?
Oh. Right. Okay. Cool.
Later, I found myself turning over our exchange in my head. As much as I’d like to believe I wouldn’t judge someone just because they have a different approach to weddings than my partner and I do, my reaction proves otherwise. I reacted to the concept of their traditional wedding. I reacted to my own concepts of money, class, privilege, and gender roles. And I reacted to the slippery concept of personalization — which is really just another way to say details. And details are just another way to divert our attention away from what’s really going on, which is: We are getting married. MARRIED, people.
Did I ever tell you about this dream I had? One night early in our engagement I dreamt that the beau had organized a surprise wedding for us, on a cruise ship. In the dream I woke up and he was like, SURPRISE! WEDDING! We rode in a limo to a pier where the ship was docked and our friends were already lining up to board. As we walked up the beau was telling me excitedly about how the cruise ship was taking care of everything, right down to the decorations. And I started crying, crying, right there in the line with our guests because OMG, the cruise ship flowers were probably going to be ugly and I hadn’t had time to pick out a proper dress and what did the chairs even look like and OMG, the wedding wasn’t going to reflect meeeeeeee. Seriously.
Why do we have customized email themes and avatars? 15 cell phone colors to choose from? Hell, why does Formspring exist? We like to express ourselves to others. We believe the objects we choose to use informs our meaning as individuals. We don’t want what everybody else has; we want to be unique. The wedding industry didn’t teach us to be like this in an effort to get us to buy more stuff. We have always been like this. It’s no wonder we carry it over into our weddings.
And so in quicker than a minute, my friend — the same dude that was once nearly thrown out of Medieval Times for trying to steal the king’s sword during an epic birthday rager — had schooled me in wedding philosophy. He reminded me that the wedding details we choose may reflect us, but they don’t give our weddings meaning. Only we can do that.
Not caring about the details isn’t the same as not caring about the marriage. Not caring about the details doesn’t make the emotion of the day any less real.*
My friend got that. And I got a chance to relearn it.
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* Turns out that Becca posted earlier today along this same topic, and as usual she put it a lot better than I did.
Great post! I think we could all benefit from re-learning that once in a while. I spent so much time of our engagement on the wedding that I found myself overwhelmed by the idea that I’m going to be a wife soon. People think it goes with the territory to realize that you’re entering into a marriage, not a wedding, but the wedding industry puts such a huge spotlight on the big day that we sometimes forget about the years afterward when we’ll be married.
Your dream was almost my wedding! Seriously. My dad’s side of the family was planning a Mexican cruise for early summer and when I broke the news that we were getting married, they suggested we get married on the cruise! Wheeeee! Except, no. I may have hung up on my sister when she suggested it. Ah, perspective.
I love this cruise ship dream post. It really hits the emotional part of my that’s still stupidly connected to the wedding pretty, even though I *know* better. Like really, I know better and I keep writing it to remind myself. But secretly, I totally want a kick-ass cool-looking succulent wedding that perfectly reflects us and our values and makes people laugh and gasp and feel like they’ve had a beautiful magical unicorn glimpse of fabulousness into our life and love. The cruise ship ridiculousness puts my idiocy all in perspective, because I totally had a moment of recognition.